Developers optimize for different things in different situations. Developers at big companies with big teams optimize for process and unit tests and scaling. I optimize for building web apps fast and getting them out into the world.
One of the best ways to do this in the 2000s was with PHP. You could very quickly build a small web app and get it live on the internet. It would be good if we could bring some of these features back to modern development.
What was good about PHP?
- Excellent searchable documentation.
- Batteries included. Any time you wanted to do something there was a function for it.
- Simple deployment. Copy a file to the server to deploy.
- No configuration or boilerplate. Each file was one route and the file was simply executed.
- No build step.
These features meant all you needed was your text editor and a webserver and you could quickly turn your idea into reality with minimum overhead.